Breathe
by toreax
Summary: More than anything, he wishes to see what Toris sees.


Toris can't decide on which flower he liked best when Feliks stretches out his arms with a bouquet of poppies, asking, "Which one is the prettiest?"

He just can't decide. Can't pick one flower. Feliks doesn't understand why, and a part of him knows Toris is messing with him. He does that a lot. But at the same time he knows there's something truth behind his words. Toris is still raw to this new life their marriage has bound them to. He still refuses to ignore the sun to lighten his skin tone, and he doesn't unwind any of his tangled braids in public or dinner. He doesn't even know the Lord's Prayer for Christ's sake. Feliks had to teach him half the words in the Bible yesterday.

Despite himself, Feliks asks, "Is it really that hard to choose? It's a flower." Toris smiles. "You have three colors. There is yellow, pink, or dark pink. That is it."

Toris takes his time to respond. Polish doesn't quite fit in his mouth still. "Yes. It's like choosing a life over another. Wouldn't you find that difficult? I'd find that difficult if I were you." He's still smiling, which is irritatingly charming. His smile always fits his face whereas ever time Feliks smiled he felt like it was stretching over his entire face and sometimes it makes him squirm when he talks to people.

"It's a flower," Feliks says, a little at a loss, mostly because he feels like it's too early into their relationship to bring up Toris' former religion. Former isn't the right word to describe it.

"Mm. It's alive, isn't it?" Toris is crouching over the patch of roses their queen had been fawning over for weeks.

"It doesn't have a brain," Feliks counters. He accidentally lets loose a breathy laugh before readying himself for Toris' response. He does that to often with everybody; it's tiring.

Toris asks what the Polish word for brain is in English. He rarely asks for words to be translated in Lithuanian, which Feliks finds strange because Feliks can just describe it or use what little knowledge he has about the language to explain. But Toris is strange altogether so he doesn't ponder much about it.

Toris smells one of the flowers and wrinkles his nose. "I have not seen roses for a few decades. I'm kind of glad," Toris says. He huffs a little, tugging at the wool tunic he'd said Raivis, his brother, had gifted him some time ago. Feliks is a bit relieved he hasn't met Raivis because Feliks wouldn't be caught dead wearing that in their King's garden. Toris shouldn't be wearing it, either, for that exact reason.

Feliks doesn't want the conversation to die off, not when they'd gotten this far talking without Toris growing quiet. He says, "If it doesn't have a brain, then - oh, yeah, their heart." He lays a hand on his chest and looks off into the sky.

Toris cracks another smile. "Laugh all you want." He accidentally switches the order for "all you" but Feliks doesn't have the heart to tell him. "Every living thing has a soul."

Toris stares at a rose for a little longer than Feliks want to sit in silence. He feels hesitant. Toris told him a few weeks ago he doesn't like it when Feliks feels like that. It sounds stupid, but it was a milestone for them.

A breeze picks up their hair and Feliks pulls out a ribbon from his pocket to pull his back. "I doubt it'll care if you call it ugly."

"Every soul can be judged. They are." Toris looks away from the roses. He isn't smiling anymore. "It is common in religion. A soul is judged in your religion as well, yes?"

They'd been crowned for a short while, but Feliks is sure by now Toris isn't someone he will ever be able to figure out, not fully. No matter how warm his chest grew, or how much his heart grows, inexplicably, fonder, for the man with a tired smile, he won't know what Toris will do, what he will say, what he thinks. Not an inkling. Feliks doesn't want to be uncomfortable but sometimes he can't help but be. Half of the time he's screaming at Toris because he just won't listen, and the other half is him screaming at himself. It makes him uncomfortable to be so drawn so intensely to another man.

Toris often tells him tales of spirits wandering the forest, how Gilbert himself is wary of his land. The life that has been there for so, so long, but go by different names or are forgotten. Feliks knows what he's talking about; he understands. While he was never like Toris, nor were his people like Toris', he knows there's truth because it's ingrained in every part of himself, except where is must be important, because he can't wrap his god-forsaken head around it still. It's kind of romantic.

Later, another day rather, Feliks finds it in himself to ask about it.

Toris says, "That is probably the least - " He pauses. "The least comp - complex question I've gotten."

"Well, I mean." Feliks doesn't know why he's so flustered over it. Toris doesn't look overly bored or angry, only simply curious. "I don't know. It's a question, nothing else."

"You don't have to worry yourself about it."

"Oh. Oh no. Don't take this out of context. I am not worried." Feliks clears his throat. "Just." He limply throws up his hands. "Come on!

Toris smiles. It's his irritating smile. Feliks lets loose a tirade of prayers in his head.

"I suppose," Toris says, jumping up from the bed, looking suddenly alive. Feliks prays again.

"I want to understand," Feliks confesses. Confession is a heavy feeling, a defeated feeling. Yet that's all he needed to say to feel like he'd gotten a weight off his chest.

It takes time though. It doesn't really matter because Toris smiles a real, tooth-bearing, alive smile when leading Feliks through the forest, watching for hares, greeting rolling streams like old friends. The sun stings Feliks' bare shoulders; he has to wear turtle necks during the summer, wash his hair more thoroughly.

Toris often takes his hand and presses it to trees. He often whispers wildly, "Do you feel them?" and Feliks feels their heartbeats and begins to understand.


End file.
